


Darkest Before Dawn

by Firefury_Amahira



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Dark, Gen, Spoilers, Yonoa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 21:52:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7701058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firefury_Amahira/pseuds/Firefury_Amahira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the torpedo launched, there was nothing left to do. Nothing left but to wait all alone in that cold, oppressive darkness... and hope desperately against all odds for a miracle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkest Before Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Ghost Trick or any of its characters. They belong to Capcom and the geniuses that created this awesome game!

### Submarine Yonoa - Torpedo Room - 5:41 am

The room shook slightly as the launch sequence completed, and within moments the whine of the torpedo’s engine in the water faded into silence. Lynne counted the seconds off in her head. Twelve seconds that ordinarily would have flown by instead crawled, each one an eternity. So many things could go wrong; what if she’d miscalculated the torpedo’s path? What if it hit the control room and detonated; or worse yet, what if it failed to pass close enough for Sissel or Missile to reach it? Her understanding of the powers of the dead was far from comprehensive, but she’d seen Sissel in action enough times over the course of the night to know that he had a short reach.

What if there really was no possible way out?

“Lynne?” The timid voice of the young girl with her broke into the detective’s thoughts. “What do we do now?”

“Well, Kamila...” Lynne frowned in thought. “I guess all we can do now is wait. I’m sure they’ll be back to get us out of here in no time at all!”

Kamila nodded once, looking hesitant. “Do you think... maybe we should go and tell that other man that we’ll be rescued soon?”

Lynne tried and largely failed to repress a shudder. She had almost managed to put the thought out of her head that after sending the torpedo on its way, she and Kamila would be waiting all alone with only _him_ for company. The manipulator, the dead man ultimately responsible for everyone being in such a terrible situation to begin with. She wasn’t entirely certain which had been more shocking earlier that night, what seemed now an eternity ago; following him to the submarine and seeing that malicious slash of a smile on the same face that had been helping her out all evening; or seeing Sissel give up that appearance once confronted with the undeniable fact that he’d been chasing the wrong identity all night.

“Lynne?”

“Sorry, I got distracted for a second there.” The redhead forced a laugh. She had to keep up the brave front for Kamila’s sake, even though the entire hopeless situation had her scared out of her wits. “I guess we might as well tell him.”

At least, it would give her something to focus her attention on besides the creeping despair that threatened to overwhelm her just as surely as the water would overwhelm the Yonoa sooner or later. Sure, talking to that man without Sissel there scared her; he’d taken her hostage years ago, he’d destroyed Kamila’s family, he’d used his powers on _her_ to frame her for murder, and worse yet he had attempted to use poor Kamila herself to finish his mad revenge scheme.

Of course, the prospect of dying on board the crippled submarine with no possible hope of being brought back to life a sixth time by Sissel’s power frightened her just as much, and possibly more. Besides, she’d meant every word when she’d told him that she was starting to understand how he must have felt all alone for those ten years. It was difficult to really get a read on his expression thanks to that hodge-podge artificial body he’d constructed out of random debris, but Lynne thought she’d seen him recoil in surprise at the statement.

### Submarine Yonoa - Officer’s Quarters - 5:45am

It was difficult going, climbing carefully along the walls and unflooded chambers to the officer’s quarters where they’d left him, apparently lost in his own thoughts and resigned to his fate. Every now and then the lights flickered and threatened to go out, causing frightened gasps from Kamila and leaving Lynne silently praying that the power would hold out just a little bit longer. She had that flashlight tucked into her coat pocket, of course; but the device had already proven unreliable and she couldn’t just ask Sissel to use his powers to make it work if it failed again.

“Hello?” Lynne poked her head through the open bulkhead door, peering down into the room below and looking for signs of activity. 

Kamila hung back while clinging to the hem of the detective’s coat, understandably uneasy about trying to talk to that scary man, even though it had been her idea to let him know that help was on the way. She had always been raised to be considerate of people, and leaving him to sink with the Yonoa while they escaped struck her as wrong. The little girl didn’t really understand everything that had happened very well, but if she understood things right, the man couldn’t really die and he would be stranded at the bottom of the ocean all alone forever and ever. Sure, he’d done some really mean things, to her and to Lynne and to her father; but nobody deserved a fate that horrible.

“Hey, are you still down here?” Lynne tried again, frowning. That humanoid contraption the manipulator had built for himself should have been easy enough to spot.

Kamila crawled next to Lynne to peer down into the room as well, pointing toward the sealed bulkhead below with a terrified squeak. “Lynne! The water!”

Sure enough, while she’d been focused on finding the manipulator, Lynne hadn’t noticed the dim lights reflecting on the shallow pool of saltwater covering the floor. The lower bulkhead must have started to fail and the sea was seeping in yet again. The slight current in the water below jostled the lightest pieces of debris, hollow bits of tubing and empty bottles, and Lynne had to bite back a curse. There was a very good reason she hadn’t spotted the manipulator’s construct.

It was lying abandoned in pieces across the floor.

He wasn’t there.

“Help me get this door closed!” Lynne ordered with a note of hysteria in her voice, moving quickly to heave the upper bulkhead shut. 

Kamila scrambled to help her get the heavy door closed and sealed tight. The hinges squealed terribly in the silence, and the bulkhead slamming home sent a deafening boom resounding through the Yonoa’s abandoned hulk. Together they hauled on the latching mechanism as hard as they could, until Lynne heard the bolt slide into place, sealing the door tight. The creeping sea was shut out again, for however little time the bulkhead door might buy them.

“If he’s not down there, where did he go?” Kamila asked, peering fearfully at the sealed bulkhead.

Lynne didn’t have an answer, at least, not one that she thought she should share with the little girl. That man could be lurking anywhere on the submarine, a potential threat that could not be detected, avoided, or repelled if he chose to use his powers despite having decided to rescue the two of them earlier. The other possibility wasn’t much better; that he had followed all of them up to the torpedo room and escaped the Yonoa along with Sissel and Missile. Certainly there were plenty of cores in a torpedo for a third ghost to stow away unnoticed, and that man had to be clever enough to realize if he wanted to have any slim chance of escaping the fate that big-eyebrowed commander intended for them all, it was on board that torpedo.

“Let’s not worry about him.” Lynne deflected the question. “If he wants to talk to us, we aren’t going to be tough to find. For now, let’s just get back to the torpedo room.”

### Submarine Yonoa - Torpedo Room - 5:56am

Climbing back up a second time took far longer than climbing down had, and longer than the climb up the first time as well. The submarine’s hull creaked and groaned almost constantly now, the lights flickering without pause as they threatened to go out for good and plunge the two girls into absolute darkness. A cold dampness in the air made metal surfaces slippery and even more hazardous to climb in the uncertain light; whether it was water seeping in or just condensation was anyone’s guess.

“How much longer, Lynne?” Kamila clung to the detective, the two girls huddled close near the launch console.

“I don’t know.” Lynne braced herself, she was a terrible liar at the best of times. “I’m sure they’ll be back any time now.”

How could she tell the poor girl that she herself held very little hope of rescue and was almost positive they were both going to die without any chance of being revived by the powers of the dead? When Sissel had saved her that last time, she’d seen the control room blast off. Lynne wasn’t an engineer, but there could not possibly have been much fuel to propel it away from the submarine. She was certain that was why it appeared to be sinking when they’d launched the torpedo. Even if Sissel and Missile were able to get to Detective Jowd, she couldn’t see any way for even that bull of a man, ghostly help or not, to reach the sinking submarine and pull the two of them out and to the surface and safety.

“I hope so.” Kamila shivered, trying to tug her dress to better cover her legs. “I’m cold.”

The remaining air in the submarine _was_ getting steadily colder. It was probably caused by the frigid water surrounding the Yonoa and slowly but surely working toward crushing the metal hull that seemed more and more like a fragile eggshell ready to crack at any moment. 

“So am I.” Lynne pulled off her coat and draped it across the both of them to try and provide a little more protection against the growing chill.

What would kill them first? Would the water reach the two of them, huddling as high in the up-ended submarine as possible? Would the oxygen supply be depleted by just the two of them? Perhaps they would both succumb to hypothermia from either the icy water or the deadly chill it imparted to the air? Surely it would have to be one of those before the water pressure collapsed the hull entirely. Morbid as the thought was, Lynne hoped that whatever finished them both off would be quick; and that her plan for Sissel and Missile worked. She had to hope that the two ghosts were able to escape; three, if the manipulator had in fact stowed away with them.

What was that man’s name? Lynne mentally kicked herself for never once looking at that case file after she’d made detective. Her memory of that day in the park was blurry at best, even details that had once been sharp she was having trouble recalling clearly. It didn’t really matter anymore, but she would have liked to have known the man’s name at least.

Kamila gave a choked cry when the lights sputtered one final time and went out, the little girl clinging to Lynne for dear life in the absolute blackness. Even the backup power for the torpedo console was exhausted, there was no light from those lamps to pierce the darkness. In the dark, the creaking and groaning of the Yonoa’s strained hull loomed even larger, the sounds seeming to come from everywhere at once.

“I want to go home.” Kamila whimpered, burying her face against Lynne’s midsection.

“Me too.” Lynne brushed one hand through the little girl’s hair, trying to be reassuring. It couldn’t be much longer, now. “It’s always darkest before dawn.”

Lynne frowned in the dark, thinking back to her first encounter with Sissel and the ghost’s explanation of his incredible powers. Everything prior to that meeting was increasingly hazy and distant in memory, the detective wasn’t certain whether that was because of the stress or the worsening conditions on board the submarine, or something else.

_“I can go back in time to four minutes before someone dies, and change things, even prevent their death from happening at all.” Even he had appeared baffled by the ability. “But it only works on corpses that haven’t been dead for long; more than a day and it won’t work.”_

It would easily be days before their bodies could be recovered from the bottom of the ocean, if they could even be recovered at all. There would be no rescue that way, Lynne was certain. She was also certain of a few other things.

_“I only have until morning before I disappear.”_

That **couldn’t** be right. The very existence of the manipulator proved that to be a lie. Whoever had given Sissel that idea had to be mistaken. Lynne reasoned from the information available that the regular dead probably disappeared within a day, since they couldn’t be revived after that point. It was the Temsik-afflicted ghosts that could, and apparently would endure. She and Kamila would only suffer in that dark abyss for a day before oblivion took them away from their suffering.

But Sissel? Or Missile?

They would have been trapped aware and helpless in that pit, probably forever. After seeing what ten years had done to the manipulator’s sanity, Lynne did not want that fate to befall the two ghosts, one a beloved pet and the other now one of her best friends. She tried and failed to suppress a shiver that had nothing to do with the frigid air. She could see it so easily; some fragment of the sunken Yonoa with a core and a ghost coming free and washing ashore years, perhaps centuries later. A ghost with the powers of the dead back where they could do things and roam free, and completely stark-raving insane.

At least the ghosts hadn’t guessed her real motive behind the torpedo plan. It was still pretty hopeless, but at the very least maybe they would be able to escape... somehow. They had been so caught up by the idea that they could rescue the girls by getting to Detective Jowd; Sissel had never once realized that Lynne intended to try her best to rescue _them_ from that sanity-sapping non-life on the bottom of the ocean. They could tell Inspector Cabanela what happened, and Sissel still had his own mystery to try and unravel.

She was startled from her musing by a trickle of water dripping from overhead somewhere and running down the back of her shirt as though it were ice. Lynne looked up despite not being able to see anything in the dark, and a moment later Kamila cried out as a second trickle struck the little girl. Fumbling sightless in the dark, they both scrambled to get away from the leaks and the wet chill that stabbed like a knife, Kamila clinging to Lynne and trying to stifle her terrified whimpers. Even the seemingly boundless optimism of a child had its limits in that place straight out of nightmare.

Lynne tried to concentrate, her thoughts increasingly confused. Even the events of the past night, sharp just moments ago were growing vague and hazy. Had she died four times, or five? It had to be the cold affecting her, or maybe the air was running out. That had to be it.

Another trickle of water began up above, causing another scramble to escape the biting cold. The man with the yellow hair, who was he again? Hadn’t he been helping her with something? A case she was working on?

With a shriek of tearing metal, there was no more escape from the icy water that now flooded into the darkened room. The cold drove all thought from her mind and her breath from her lungs in shock as it quickly closed over her head, taking away any hope for one more gasp of air-

### Lynne’s Apartment - 6:00am

The shrieking alarm clock on the bedstand was drowned out by a muffled yell and a flailing mass of bedsheets and blankets teetering off the bed to hit the floor with a loud crash. The clock continued its wailing as Lynne fumbled in the dark to fight free of the blankets, eventually managing to locate the offending device and shut it off. Missile took a little longer to silence in the dim bedroom, the pomeranian dancing all over the upset bedding and barking his fool head off at the alarm clock until after the detective corralled him for a sleepy scolding.

“Whew... what an awful dream.” She groused, lugging the bedding back off of the floor.

She must have had the blankets pulled tight over her head, causing some sort of weird dream about suffocating or drowning. Even with the details fading, it still seemed so _real_. Certainly her pulse pounding in Lynne’s ears at the remembered fright was real enough. Ever since that day in the park, she occasionally had those sorts of vivid, awful nightmares. Dreams where she died, dreams about other people dying... but that was by far the worst. 

With Missile dancing attendance on the detective, Lynne made her way to the kitchen to get some direly needed coffee. The sun wasn’t up yet, not this late in the year, but the sky outside was growing brighter with the promise of the coming dawn. Somehow it seemed like that was significant, though she couldn’t quite put a finger on why.

“No time to dwell on bad dreams, right Missile?” Lynne gave the happy little dog a couple of dog treats, eliciting some more excited barks. “Today is a big day!”

Well, she really wasn’t sure what she should think about the coming day and what it involved. That man was done with his prison sentence today, the one who had taken her hostage as a child. Lynne didn’t remember what happened very well, but in the years to follow Detective Jowd had told her all about it, from his chasing the man all the way to Temsik Park, to the meteor that came crashing down hardly a hundred feet away, and how the man had ended up seriously injured protecting her from being crushed by the park mascot. For some reason she had wanted to be sure she knew his name, and she’d made a point of finding out.

Yomiel.

Well, he’d taken her hostage, but he _had_ saved her life as well; and he’d served out his time for his crimes without complaint. Besides, something good had come out of that childhood trauma; she’d met Detective Jowd as a result, and found her calling. She’d made new friends and practically considered her mentor’s family as her own. If anyone had asked, she would have told them that in the end, the result had been a net positive for her.

And somehow, Lynne just _knew_ that those horrid nightmares would trouble her no more.

### Kamila’s Bedroom - 6:01am

Kamila sat bolt upright in her bed with a strangled cry, shivering and whimpering in the dark of her bedroom completely frightened out of her wits. The room was still quite dark despite the pre-dawn gloom beyond the closed curtains, the little girl’s nightlight having apparently gone out sometime in the night. She clung to the little black kitten in her arms, still too frightened from her bad dream to notice that the poor creature was likely being crushed painfully by her grip. Kamila could feel dampness on her face; streaks left by tears. It had been so scary, and now she was all alone in the dark.

Abruptly the nightlight came back on and one of the curtains slid partway open, the dim light that both provided enough to drive away the last vestiges of nightmare as the shadows retreated to reveal her own bedroom and its familiar decorations and toys put away neatly. The purring bundle in her arms finally banished the last of her nameless terror, and Kamila hastily eased her hold on the kitten, apologizing profusely to her poor Sissy for hugging him so tight.

That nightmare had been so scary, and so vivid; it took several minutes for her to settle back down, snuggled up under her blankets and cuddling her favorite kitty. Her dad would never let anything bad happen to her, and neither would her mom; or Lynne, who was practically like a big sister. She occasionally had bad dreams like that, the sort that left her awake in the night crying for her mom, but like those times before, the purring kitten curled up next to her eventually lulled Kamila back to peaceful sleep.

Sissel kept up his contented purr long after Kamila’s breathing had slowed to the steady rhythm of sleep, watching the sunrise through the partly-open curtain. The sunrise that finally put an end to that long, dark night; heralding in truth the new beginning that he and the others had created mere minutes and a decade ago.


End file.
